A Light in the Darkness
By Bekah See
Sam was restless. For over a week now, she and Daniel had been working on the artifact they had found on their last expedition, and so far, they hadn’t gotten anywhere. Sighing, Sam got up from her stool and stretched, popping at least three vertebrae in the process. Daniel looked up from where he had been studying glyphs etched into the side of the – whatever-it-was.
“Breaktime?” he asked dryly.
“Absolutely” Sam said, putting down her tools and starting for the door.
Daniel grinned and followed her out of the lab and down the corridor toward the mess. It would probably be deserted at this time of night, but they could at least get some coffee and think about something else for a while— yeah, like that’s gonna happen, he thought wryly.
Sam chose a table near the coffee cart and sat down with a sigh. Daniel sat across from her, studying her face. “You okay?” he asked tentatively. Sam flashed him her bright smile.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. We’ve been working on that thing several days, and we’re no closer to understanding what it is than when we started.”
“I know. The writing on the artifact is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I can read over 20 languages, and none of them are helping me. The only deciphering I’ve been able to do is to determine the symbols are not Goa’uld, Asgard, Ancient, or any variation of any language originating from earth.”
“Furling?” Carter suggested.
“Dunno” Daniel said with a shrug. We’ve never met them so I have nothing to compare it with. Actually, I have a feeling that this is something completely different.”
“Great.” Carter said glumly. “Completely different usually means long hours of tedious study that gets us absolutely nowhere until we find some frame of reference with which to compare whatever it is we’re trying to figure out.”
Daniel sat up very straight. “That’s it. Why didn’t we think of it before?”
“What’s it?”
“We need a frame of reference. We need to go back to the planet where we found the … thingy.”
“Oh no you don’t.” Carter said sternly. “The last time we were we had barely set foot past the gate before the inhabitants started shooting at us. There’s no way Hammond is going to let us go back there. We’re stuck with whatever we’ve already got.”
“Which is … nothing.” Daniel said, lowering his head and running his fingers through his hair.”
Carter slumped. “Yup, pretty much.”
“Morning, Carter!” Sam jumped at the sound of her CO’s greeting and looked guiltily around at him as he entered her lab.
“Good morning, sir” she stifled a yawn—barely.
“Long night? Again?” Colonel Jack O’Neill leaned just inside the doorway, arms folded, and a knowing smirk on his face. “You know, sleep is usually a good thing if one wishes to not fall comatose at work.”
“Sorry sir.” She gestured to the inert object on her desk. “It’s just that I cannot for the life of me figure out what this thing is supposed to do.”
“Really?” Jack said, eyebrows raised in surprise. “As in no clue at all?”
“No, sir. Not even an hint of one.”
“Welcome to my world.” he grinned at her before turning and sauntering away.
Carter chuckled and dropped her head onto her arms, trying for all the world to stay focused on what she was supposed to be doing.
The thing was, she knew Daniel was right. They needed to go back to the planet and look around to see if they had missed anything. But she had been right, too. As soon as they had set foot through the gate, the inhabitants of the planet had started shooting at them, blue streaks of fire raging all over the area. O’Neill had yelled at her to dial out while the rest of them covered her. She had complied, pushing the seven symbols in sequence, just as she had hundreds of times before. The gate opened with its characteristic splendor, and they had all made a break for it. Daniel, typically, had tripped on his way to the event horizon, and also typically, had stopped to examine what had tripped him. What he found and pulled out of the dirt before running through the ring to safety was the device that now had them so stumped.
Normally, if they couldn’t figure out the nature of something they found offworld, they simply did a cursory examination, took careful pictures and notes on what they knew, and sent it to Area 51 for further study. There was something about this one, however, that kept Sam coming back to it. Maybe it was the fact that they had never seen anything like the writings covering the outside, or maybe it was the material it was made of – they’d never encountered it before.
Whatever it is, Sam mused to herself, it’s sure beautiful.
She picked it up, turning it over in her hands as she studied it. Okay, she thought, let’s start from the beginning. Physical description: roughly diamond shaped with one point being about three inches longer than the opposing point, which curves down about 50 degrees from the horizontal. The “top” and “bottom” points are equidistant from the center, and are identical in shape and length. Her thoughts began to drift, and her eyes momentarily losing focus as she gazed at the object. She shook herself. Dammit! I really should get more sleep. Three hours in two days just doesn’t seem to be enough. She sat up, letting her head fall back and rolled her shoulders a couple of times to loosen them. Then she returned to her review. The material, whatever it is, is slightly warm to the touch, even though there is no discernable energy emanating from it. Color is pearly white, almost glowing, with colors running through every part of it. White is the sum of all the colors blended, so that makes sense. She ran her long fingers over the etched surface, tracing the glittering characters, and wondered what in the world they could mean.
“Hey” For the second time that day, Sam jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you… again.” Sam glared at the Colonel, who didn’t seem the slightest bit sorry. “Wanna get some dinner?”
“Thank you, sir, but not this time. I really need to go home and get some sleep.”
Jack seemed a little crestfallen. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
Sam nodded at him. “Yes sir.” She watched him walk away, and felt a little pang of regret that she hadn’t taken him up on his offer. But she was way too tired to hang around and try to be sociable. Wearily, she got up and collected her things before riding the elevator to the surface, getting in her car, and blearily driving home. She stumbled into her house, threw her things on the floor (a testament to how tired she was) and collapsed into her bed. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
Sam was walking in darkness. A suffocating darkness, completely devoid of anything even remotely familiar, and she felt utterly alone. She looked around, her scientist’s mind trying to figure out where she was. Was she dreaming? Did something happen to her during a recent mission? No, she distinctly remembered coming home and dropping into bed. So she had to be dreaming. But then why was she so lucid? Usually, if she figured out she was dreaming, she woke up right away. So it couldn’t be a dream.
“Hello??” She cried out to the darkness, hoping that someone, anyone, would hear. Her voice echoed back to her out of the blackness. She was starting to get a little nervous, now. She had never felt so completely alone. “Is anyone there? Where am I??” Now she was really spooked. She started running, although she couldn’t see where she was going. “Hello?” she called again, real fear in her voice. “Hel—“ suddenly she stopped short. Something had changed. She saw something ahead of her, shining brightly in the darkness. She started toward it, slowly at first, then faster and faster. As she drew near, she began to see it more clearly. Roughly diamond shaped, white pearly surface, colors dancing over and through the writing that covered its exterior. The object from the planet. Well, that makes sense, her rational mind told her, you’ve been poring over that thing for a week. You have every reason to be dreaming about it. Except that she still didn’t believe she was dreaming. Reaching out, she hesitantly touched it, running her fingers over the markings as she had done at the SGC. But this time, something happened. The markings began to change, rearranging themselves into characters that she instantly recognized as her native language. Eagerly, Sam moved closer, peering down at the pearly facade, seeing her reflection shining through the now readable words. She read:
Protect against the ruthless
Rip away the veil
Safeguard those who need it most
Care for the called
Sam read it again and again, trying to make sense of the words. As she stared, she noticed that one of the markings, set into the top point of the object, had not been translated. She studied it, running her hand over it as she had done before, hoping the marks would rearrange themselves again. They didn’t. Sam looked up, aware of something changing in the dimness. A strip of light had appeared in front of her, like a rip in the fabric of the blackness. Dazzling brightness was seeping through, bathing her in soft white beauty. Hesitantly, Sam reached out, intending to pull aside the fringes of the dark. She sensed something on the other side. Something she had not known in a long time if she ever had. It tickled her senses, pulled her forward. With each passing moment, she wanted it more, yearned and longed for it, even though she wasn’t sure what it was.
Then it was gone.
Sam sat up in her bed, almost sobbing with the abrupt separation from whatever it was that she had wanted so badly. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Lowering her head, she pulled deep calming breaths, trying to settle the pounding of her heart, and to remember what had shaken her so badly. Slowly, the images returned, and along with them, the feelings. The sensation of absolute isolation, the thrill of being able to read the inscription, and that feeling coming through the tear in the darkness. She remembered how tantalizing it had been, but even now, she could not put a name to it.
Calmer now, Sam debated with herself about whether or not to head directly back to the SGC with this discovery, and decided that Daniel was probably fast asleep. Not to mention she was still dead tired. Sam lay back down on her bed, and slept.
Her alarm clock woke her up several hours later. Or rather the lack of sound it made as it finally gave up and shut itself off was what officially woke her. She rolled over, and looked at the green numbers: 6:10. “Damn” Sam muttered as she jumped out of bed. She was late, and she needed to talk to Daniel before he got busy with some random translation.
________________________________________________________________________
“Daniel! Daniel, are you in here?” Sam was in his office, looking around stacks of books and shelves full of various strange looking artifacts, trying to find her friend. She was nearing the back of the room when he walked in, hair tousled, and glasses a little skewed as he nursed his first cup of coffee.
“Sam? What’s up? You look better. Get a good night’s sleep?”
“Uh, yes and no, but yes, I feel better. Hey, I might have a lead on the artifact we found on P3X-712.”
He squinted at her. “Really? How’d you manage that if you were home sleeping?
“Well, actually, now that I’m going to say it, it sounds a little strange, but I had this dream-vision thing.” Daniel raised his eyebrows at her and Sam dipped her chin. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but in the dream, uh vision, uh, whatever, the markings on the object rearranged themselves into words I could read. Daniel, I even remember what it said!”
“Um, Sam, it was a dream. Your brain was probably trying to give you some resolution to the frustration you’ve been feeling lately.”
“No, Daniel, it was more than that. Don’t give me that look, I know what you’re thinking. Can I just tell you what it said, and you can look at it and see if it fits?”
Daniel looked again at the paper that Sam had handed him with her “translation” of the writings on the object. “Rip away the veil” he murmured to himself. His brain was running over all the mythos and legends of earth, trying to make a connection as he had done so many times before. “Veil, veil, veil…” Something in the back of his brain niggled at his attention, but he knew that if he went after it too hard, he would lose it completely, so he left it on the back burner while he moved on to other lines in the text. His eyes moved back and forth from the paper in his hand to the object on the cluttered lab table in front of him.
Sam paced a few feet away, her thumbnail between her teeth, obviously lost in thought. As Daniel’s eyes flicked back to the markings again, he stopped dead in his tracks. Throwing the paper down on the table, he leaned in close to the object, staring at a particular symbol that had caught his attention. He took the device in his hands, and stared, turning it around and around, never taking his eyes off of it.
Sam noticed the movement. “Daniel? What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Daniel said slowly. “But it may be that…”
“What”
“Well, this symbol here,” Daniel pointed to the glyph that had caught his attention, “reminds me of something I saw when I was still in school. But if it’s what I think it is, then it’s so ancient that…” He trailed off, muttering to himself.
“I thought you said the inscription wasn’t a variation of any language found on earth.”
“Yeah, I may have been wrong about that. Sam, if your translation is correct, then we may have a major find here. We really need to go back to that planet.”
________________________________________________________________________
“Sir?”
General Hammond looked up from his seemingly endless mound of paperwork to find Major Carter looking expectantly at him. “Major? What can I do for you?”
“Sir, request permission for SG-1 to return to P3X-712.”
“Why in the world would you want to go back?? You barely made it out the first time you were there.”
“Sir, I think we may have something on our hands that could help defend earth against her enemies, but we need to know more about it to be sure. Going back to the planet is the only way we can find out if the artifact we found is a viable option for defense.”
“Major Carter, I don’t know that I’m willing to send my flagship team into what is obviously a highly volatile situation to find something that may or may not even be there.”
“I understand that, sir, and I have a few ideas to make things a little less hot when we get there.”
Hammond studied her for a moment, noting the energy and earnestness in her blue eyes “Alright, Major, I’ll hear you out. Briefing at 1100 hours.”
Carter grinned at him in relief. “Thank you, sir.”
“P3X-712”, Carter said, looking around at her team and General Hammond. The last time we were there…”
“We almost got our butts blown off.” O’Neill interrupted.
“Yes, sir, I was about to say that sir. But this time, if we plan it right, we should be able to go back with a much bigger safety margin.”
“Um, excuse me,” O’Neill again. “but, why in the world would we WANT to go back there? Last time I checked, none of us really wanted to have our butts blown off. That would be…” he circled his wrist as if searching for the perfect word, “…bad”.
“Yes, sir, I realize that, but Daniel and I have been studying the artifact we found on our last visit, and we believe it may have some major implications.” She nodded at Daniel to continue. Daniel leaned forward, folding his hands in what O’Neill recognized as his lecture pose.
“The markings on the object seem to tell us what it’s supposed to do. Now, at first, we weren’t able to make heads or tails of them, but then I noticed this…” he took up a black remote and flipped to the image of the mark he’d noted earlier. “It could be a derivative of one of the most ancient languages ever recorded on earth…”
“Daniel, I don’t care what language it’s in. I just want to know what it says.” Jack said forcefully.
“Okay, roughly translated, it means ‘to watch over’ and as far as I can tell, the context seems to be looking after those who are oppressed. Now we know that the Ancients are one of the most advanced branches of humanity ever to evolve. The Asgard, and even the Goa’uld are much older races than we are, and are also much more advanced. The glyph pictured here may predate even the ancients, and if it represents a benevolent race who was dedicated to protecting those under its care, then we may be able to utilize the technology to defend earth.”
Jack sighed, and looked at Hammond. “What do you think sir?”
Hammond thought for a moment, then looked at Carter, “What did you have in mind to protect yourselves, Major?”
________________________________________________________________________
Col. Jack O’Neill glared at the red siren lights as they blared their warning that the gate was in use. “Why does that stupid thing have to go off when WE’RE the ones opening the gate?”
Hammond shot him a look before grabbing the microphone. “Whenever you’re ready Major.”
“Almost there sir. I’ve replaced the rockets on the UAV with flash grenades which will be dropped when and where we tell them to. As soon as it goes through, we will be able to ascertain what kind of opposition exists around the gate, then we’ll fly it out over a range of 10 kilometers. Once we’ve established where the enemy is hiding, we’ll drop the grenades. SG-1 will then go through and neutralize the enemy with zats…”
“Yes, Carter,” O’Neill said dryly into the mike, “we were in the briefing room with you, remember?”
Carter looked up sheepishly, “Sorry sir. I’m almost ready. You might want to come down here.”
O’Neill sighed and looked at Teal’C. “You ready to do this again?”
Teal’C looked at him. “Major Carter’s strategy seems to be sound. Do you not think this is a good idea, O’Neill?”
Jack looked at his large friend and grunted before heading out of the control room and down to the gate room. Teal’C bowed to Hammond before following.
“Ready?” Carter asked them as they assembled at the side of ramp which held the waiting UAV.
“Launch it” O’Neill ordered.
The technician on duty pressed a button and the RC plane shot off into the event horizon. SG-1 readied their zats and stepped up onto the ramp.
Sergeant Harriman‘s voice rang into the gateroom, “UAV has reached its destination. We’re receiving telemetry. It looks like there’s multiple hostiles around the gate area, but they’re clustered into three zones, one to the north, one to the east and one to the north west. The UAV is now flying its recon path to a distance of 10 kilometers.” He paused for a moment. “The area is clear after the first defense zone around the gate.”
“On my mark, drop two grenades into each of the hostile groups.” O’Neill ordered. “Three, two, one, Mark!”
Jack and his team ran to the gate and through the ring. Coming out the other side, they encountered no resistance, but knew that wouldn’t last long. O’Neill ran to take out the men lying slightly stunned to the east, while Teal’C went north and Carter and Daniel moved northwest. A few minutes later, they all met back in front of the gate.
“That went well.” Daniel commented, holstering his zat.
“Now what?” O’Neill looked at Carter questioningly.
“Now, we look around for anything that seems like it might be related to the object we found last time. It was buried right in front of the gate, so we may not have to go too far.”
“Alright. Stay in radio contact. Daniel, you’re with Teal’C, Carter, you’re with me.”
Carter and O’Neill moved away from the others into the brush ringing the stargate. Jack stayed close to her as they looked for signs of anything that might prove useful . She could feel the heat of him buzzing through her as it always did when he was near her, and she moved away from him slightly, knowing the distraction could pose a problem. Suddenly something caught her eye, and she moved toward it, away from her CO, who was looking at a particularly interesting purple bug. Sam’s danger sense made her skin prickle, but she ignored it, intent on uncovering the black markings she had noticed on the ground. As she got closer, she glanced up and saw how far she had moved from O’Neill.
“Sir, I’ve found some—“ Jack glanced up just in time to see her enveloped in a circle of rings and transported out in a flash of white light.
“—thing. Uh-oh.” Sam said softly as she was rematerialized into what was very obviously an alien structure. She readied her P90, looking carefully around in the gloom for movement. When something caught her eye, she very nearly started shooting just for the sake of it. It wouldn’t have helped. The gas coming up through vents in the octagonal floor had her out cold in a second.